Catechetical Sermon on Pascha

719 SPURIA. ^A [the text continues] ...for the body is at rest, whether in an inn or in other places; it does not interrupt the journey, but it rests indeed to care for the body, while not departing from the goal of the journey undertaken. So too the Savior gave us the fruit of His blessings, not that we might live in luxury, but that we might nurse our failing flesh and soul. Do not, therefore, under the pretext of the mysteries, introduce something alien; do not imagine that because you are a participant in them, grace is kin to gluttony. Let these things be observed, not by the faithful only, but by the catechumens as well. Before the bestowal of the gift, demonstrate the dignity of the gift. What need is there of words? Examine your own conscience. With what confidence does he approach who has violated the fast? Truly, today he approaches, and with no one accusing, your conscience will convict you. Have you ever seen anyone who brings an accuser with him? Have instead a conscience that champions you. Today’s day, that is, this holy mystagogy, does not seek the course of fasting, nor that mystagogy [to be held] on holy Easter; but because in this one there is the tradition of the passion, and in that one the resurrection, let us be sharers in the former and participants in the latter. ^B Today let us be sharers in the passion, then in the resurrection: today, as sharers in this, let us not give ourselves over to luxury, but to tears; for after the resurrection there is no sorrow. Now Christ suffers, and you indulge in delicacies? Do you not know that many nobles have often been rebuked because they indulged in delicacies during royal mourning, and were punished? But you, while you see the Lord’s passion still shining on the cross, and before the resurrection has arrived, anticipating the joy of the resurrection, have you given yourself over to luxury? I say these things not because it is necessary to pursue the Savior Himself with mourning, as if He had suffered things worthy of mourning, but because it is right for us to show a grateful mind, so that having become sharers in His passion, we may be sharers also in the resurrection: for to the Lord Himself is due glory, honor, and adoration, together with the Father and the most holy and life-giving Spirit, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

ADMONITION

On the Life-Giving Burial,

ON THE LATRON AND THE BETRAYAL OF OUR SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST

^C O, the power of our prayer, the prayer of a Christ-loving people interceding for a sinful priest! Let not this manner of beginning strike you with astonishment; for I have learned to say these things to you with the divine Paul as my teacher, who says these things clearly in his epistles to the disciples: Pray for me, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth (Eph. 6:19). If indeed Paul, the vessel of election, the heavenly man, the orator of grace, had need of the prayers of his disciples, how much more I, whom you all know to be a sinner? Yet even the publican, who removed himself from an evil practice, became a disciple of the Lord. I also know that a harlot, offering tears of repentance to the footprints of the Lord, washed away her famous harlot-like filth: I know also that prudent latron, who snatched great things through faith: for the gain of such theft was paradise. I feel, too, that I myself have seized the same anchor. ^D For we have such a clement Lord, who, having accepted our sincere prayer, immediately imparts His mercy. For He gave the Law; but since that law held only the shadow of future good things, and not the truth of the things themselves, it could not enlighten. He sent the prophetic crowd as if it were an embassy; but that prophetic people, held by death, cried out saying: I am earth and ashes (Gen. 18:27). The unchanging Angel could not become incarnate. Not an angel, He says, not an ambassador redeemed them, but the Lord Himself (Isai. 63:9). For He saw the world destitute of help, and crying out to Him: Incline, O Lord, your heavens, and descend (Ps. 143:5). For if You, He says, do not descend to us, we cannot ascend to You through another. He saw, therefore, and did not despise the supplication; but He inclined the heavens and descended to earth, nor did He leave His own empty. He was conceived in a virginal womb, broader than the whole world. For that which the patriarchal hut could not contain, a virginal womb embraced. He became incarnate, as He Himself knows, not as heretics interpret, who, while they are ignorant of the things proper to themselves, measure divine things [by their own]. He was born as it pleased Him. He ascended the wood, He who healed the wood of paradise, and cries: I trod the winepress alone, and there was no one with me (Isai. 63:3), no angel, no ambassador, no archangel, no prophet, no king, no one of the just was with me: and one alone was with me, who did not crush death with me, but with me received paradise as an inheritance: with me on the wood, not with me in the war undertaken against death. For the Lord, he says, crushing wars, the Lord is His name (Judith 16:3). One latron confessed. Oh, stupendous and new things! The latron with Christ, the disciple Judas with the devil: light was changed into darkness, and darkness into light; the lamb became a wolf, and the wolf became a lamb. The latron, having hands pierced with nails, greeted the Lord with faithful voice, saying: Remember me, O Lord, when You come into Your kingdom (Luke 23:42). Judas, however, prepared the sword; he said sweet things with his lips, and belched forth deceit from his heart, saying: Hail, Rabbi (Matt. 26:49); then he kisses Him, and turning, says to the Jews with a gesture, not with words: Seize and take Him away. O wicked Judas, to what do you command to lead Him who said, Heaven is My throne, and earth the footstool of My feet (Isai. 66:1)? [the text continues]

ds: Seize and take Him away. O wicked Judas, to what do you command to lead Him who said, Heaven is My throne, and earth the footstool of My feet (Isai. 66:1)? ^A If grace were to be given to you, you would not be worthy, for a defiled vessel cannot contain the heavenly ointment. And what shall I say of Judas? Peter, who received the keys of the kingdom of heaven, saw the King being crucified and, having abandoned the keys, fled; and the thief, he whose doors of paradise were opened by men, snatched the keys for himself. Peter, who said, If it be necessary for me to die with You, I will not deny You (Matt. 26:35), denied Him; and the thief, who had not promised with his voice but was dying with Him in His resurrection, said: Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom. The thief did not fear rulers and authorities, and Peter did not endure the threat of a maidservant; the thief cried out, Lord, and Peter said, I do not know this man, whom a little before he called the Son of God. Peter, who had walked upon the sea, denied Him who had trodden the liquid nature; and the thief, not having walked upon the back of the sea, but having walked upon the gates of the rich, cried out, Lord. The sons of Zebedee, who said, We can drink the cup that You are about to drink (Matt. 20:22)—for this was the case—fled at the time of the cup; but the thief snatched the cup of salvation from the hand of the sons of Zebedee, saying: I will take the cup of salvation, and I will call upon the name of the Lord (Ps. 115:4). Thomas, the curious investigator of the incomprehensible mystery, said to his fellow disciples: Let us also go, that we may die with Him (John 11:16); and when he saw Him being crucified, he fled. He sees Him being crucified, and he flees; he sees Him resurrected, and he doubts, saying: Unless I put my finger into the mark of the nails, and my hand into His side, I will not believe (Ibid. 20:25). But the man-loving God, who came down for the sake of one sheep, did not despise this one sheep; ^B but He takes it upon His shoulders and says: Bring your hand here, and put it into My side. I endured the soldier’s lance, and shall I not endure the apostolic hand? But O thief of good deeds (for my speech is to you), you learned to steal, you were not taught to believe. You did not become a disciple, and how do you call Him Creator, saying: Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom? You spoke well, you believed piously. You have often stolen with danger, you have often opened the treasuries of the rich, and you never found such a pearl as Christ. You did not become an apostle, you did not hear the lawgiver saying: You shall see your life hanging (Deut. 28:66); and how did you pluck life from a tree? Did you not hear Isaiah saying: By the stripe of His passion, the sufferings of men receive healing (Isai. 53:5); and how did you find a remedy in sufferings? Truly, says the thief, I see all creation subsiding and trembling, and I recognize the Master of creation hanging upon the wood. For if this were not the Creator of all, the sun, seeing Him being stripped, would not have hidden its own rays in shame, and darkened the God-fighters. If this were not the Creator of heaven and earth, the heaven, seeing Him being crucified, would not have put on darkness like sackcloth. If this were not the Master of all the earth, having received the blood from His side, it would not have been shaken from its foundations. If this were not the Master of life and death, death approaching Him would not have been overthrown, and the monuments of the saints would not have been opened. If this were not the Lord of the temple, the temple, seeing Him being crucified, would not have rent its own veil. If this were not He who does not wish for the death of sinners, He would not have interceded for the sinners, saying: Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing (Luc. 23:34). For His death established all things. For He descends into Hades, and ascends with all. ^C Therefore, I cry out, saying: Lord, remember me. I do not implore as a servant, "Remember me when it goes well for You," but, "Remember me, when You come into Your kingdom." And what does the Master say to him? Amen, I say to you, today you shall be with Me in paradise. Let the precise logothetes of the incomprehensible generation say how He said to the thief, Today you shall be with Me in paradise? Let them first interpret this, and then His ineffable birth, which he proclaims prophetically: Who shall recount His generation? For His life is taken away from the earth (Isai. 53:8). The Fathers expanded this faith, thus they glorified the uncircumscribed, believing and not investigating curiously. Today you shall be with Me in paradise. He spoke, and it was done. But, O man-loving Master, all the righteous are standing outside of paradise, and do You bring a thief into paradise? Truly, I bring a thief first into paradise, that I may persuade the world that I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. To Christ Himself be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

ADMONITION ON THE FOLLOWING SERMONS FOR PASCHAH

^D The first sermon which occurs, being very short, is a fragment not worthy of Chrysostom; but it is nevertheless of a better character than those which follow, which proceeded from a writer not unlearned indeed, but quite intricate. Seven sermons follow after these from the same writer, who is endowed with as much obscurity as Chrysostom enjoys clarity. The style is altogether perplexed and iron-like. The writer has as his aim to refer all things which are mentioned in the twelfth chapter of Exodus concerning the paschal lamb sacrificed by the Jews in Egypt, to Christ sacrificed for the salvation of the world. And indeed, all Christians agree on this matter, that the lamb once...

CATECHETICAL SERMON FOR HOLY PASCHAH

If any are pious and God-loving, let them enjoy this beautiful and radiant festival. If any are grateful servants, let them enter rejoicing into the joy of their Lord. If any have labored while fasting, let them receive their denarius today. If any have worked from the first hour, let them receive today their just debt. If any have come after the third hour, let them celebrate with gratitude. If any have arrived after the sixth hour, do not let them worry; for they suffer no loss. If any have delayed until the ninth hour, let them draw near without doubting. If any have arrived at the eleventh hour only, do not fear because of the lateness. For the Master is generous; He receives the last even as the first. He gives rest to him who arrives at the eleventh hour, just as to him who worked from the first. He has mercy on the last, and provides for the first; He gives to the one, and bestows upon the other. And He honors the action, and praises the intention. Therefore, enter all of you into the joy of our Lord, and first and second, receive the reward. Rich and poor, dance with one another. Temperate and slothful, honor the day. Those who have fasted and those who have not fasted, rejoice today. The table is full, feast on it all. The calf is abundant, let no one depart hungry. Let all partake of the wealth of goodness. Let no one lament for poverty; for the common kingdom has appeared. Let no one mourn for transgressions;